~ doing stuff I like. writing about it. writing about other people doing stuff they like.

Category Archives: fantasy lit

Writer’s Note: Get used to seeing this kind of thing. I desperately want to see if I can write speculative fiction and so I’ll try out a few concepts here. Today’s Daily Prompt was just too good to pass up.

There were two sets of hands resting on the wooden table. One pair was folded, right over left. Delicate nets of blue and green veins, more prominent than they once were, pulsed gently under the skin. The other pair forced the palms flat on the table’s surface, trying to convey control but a twitching finger betrayed some dread. The girl belonging to those hands kept her gaze just above them, hardly daring to look up.

“I’m not sorry I did it,” she said. Her voice was quiet but firm.

“You put yourself at risk. You put your family at risk. But I can’t say I would have done much differently at your age, particularly with a boy like that at stake.” The girl’s fingers curled in on themselves. The woman allowed a corner of her mouth to smile slightly. “There is to be a wedding, then?”

The girl looked up. “Yes. Before the end of the season. But we can all move into the palace right away. There is a lot of talk about preparations and how much time it will take, but I know you and I can make quick work of all that.”

The woman tightened her grip on her own left hand. “My dear one, my daughters and I cannot go with you.”

The girl waved them away. “Oh, of course you can. He knows what we can do. Well, what you and I can do. I don’t think my sisters will ever learn now, do you? I don’t think so and neither does he. You see, I told him everything. He knows everything and he doesn’t care. He-”

“That may be true. But it’s one thing for a young prince in love to blindly trust the object of his affections. It’s quite another for a king to accept that kind of power. Does he know?”

“He knows there was magic involved that night, but-”

“Does he know it was you?”

The girl’s hands fell to her sides. “No.”

“He must never know.”

“It was a dress and some shoes. It was a party trick. What concern could he have?”

“That what started as a party trick would turn into a coup.”

“A coup? He would fear me? Us? That’s madness! We would never do something like that. I don’t want that kind of power. I never have.”

The woman leaned forward slightly. “Oh, no? You have never considered what you could achieve with your gifts?”

The girl sat up straight. “No. Never.”

They sat in silence a moment, the girl’s words hanging in the air. The woman fixed her eyes on the girl. “He will be hard to convince. It would be best not to give him the opportunity to wonder.”

“So what would you have me do? Lie?”

“Yes.”

“And say what? A witch enchanted me? Or a fairy broke the veil just to bring me new clothes?”

“Say whatever you think he will believe so long as he does not suspect you. Better to let him think you were a victim or innocent bystander than a woman who can wield magic.”

The girl pushed back from the table. “You always told me magic was a gift. That I should be proud. Now you tell me I must hide it?”

“From those that would fear you or cause you harm, yes.”

The girl crossed her arms. “So this is the end? I’m never to use magic again? You would leave me with no teacher? No guidance?”

The woman sat silently for a time then stood. “For our safety – yours, mine, and my daughters’ – you must leave me behind. I hope you continue to practice in some small way. But you must be discreet.” She walked over to the girl and took her hands. “I feel as though I have doomed you to a life of compromise. If you stay here, I can teach you. Your talents could improve some but your heart would be miserable. You would never know more than this small patch of land. If you leave, and you know that you must, your heart will sing but you must hide a part of yourself. This world does not understand magic. They may see the beauty in it as long as it remains a novelty. Once it ceases to be amusing, they will fear you and then they will want to destroy you.”

The girl looked at the floor. “I can’t bear this alone. There is still so much to learn. I need you.” She looked up. “Think of what good what might do together.”

The woman tilted her head. “Ah, and you say you never wanted power? Be honest with yourself, dear one. Of course you want greatness. I only wish this world would allow it.” She squeezed the girl’s hands. “My days of teaching are at an end. It’s time to focus on my young daughters and build up their strengths. Yes, their strengths. They are different than ours but they have strengths nonetheless. And I will care for your father’s estate and all who work here. That’s enough goodness for me to do, I should think.” She kissed the girl’s fingers. “Goodbye, my dear one.”

I don’t think I can add anything substantial to the conversation about #OscarsSoWhite. I agree with much of what has been written already. I suppose I should be more outraged, but that would require some kind of element of surprise. When I heard about the nominations, my reaction was more along the lines of an eye roll and a heavy sigh of “oh, typical.”

In my own specific part of the world, in which I am a minority, I am, in fact, surrounded by white males. It isn’t necessarily surprising to me to see so many of them in my neighborhood, in businesses, on television, or in the movies. The Academy of Motion Pictures has just over 6,000 members, 93% of whom are white and 76% are male. I have to imagine that for them it’s also unsurprising to be surrounded by other white males. It’s unfortunate. It’s also largely systemic within the northwestern hemisphere.

This problem runs so much deeper than this one awards show. So many people, consciously or unconsciously, see white as the default race and the default human experience. Neil Gaiman touched on it recently on his Tumblr page regarding one viewer’s experience of his book Anansi Boys. A fan had asked why Neil Gaiman didn’t explicitly describe the main characters as being black, because the fan didn’t realize they weren’t white until after reading the book multiple times. Here is Neil’s response:

“I’m sorry you read Fat Charlie and Spider and Mr Nancy and their families as white on first read, but that might have something to do with the way that people’s heads reading a book can default all characters to white, if other information is not immediately supplied, which is a very bad habit, and one I hope Anansi Boys might help people to shed.”

The thing white folks need to realize is that while they default to a white mindset, non-white folks don’t. There was a fantastic article in the New York Times last week which shared a number of anecdotes about what it’s actually like for non-male, non-white people to work in Hollywood. I identified with a lot of the comments made by Eva Longoria and America Ferrera. Truthfully, nothing was earth-shattering. No one in the article had been physically harmed by the industry, but a series of small indignities really add up over a lifetime. Microaggression is real, folks. If it seems inconsequential, it’s because you haven’t experienced it. Don’t dismiss another person’s experience – this world is in desperate need of empathy these days. It’s part of the whole putting-yourself-in-someone-else’s-shoes thing (rest in peace, Harper Lee).

I will watch the Oscars tonight, along with thousands of other people. I’ll get a kick out of it like I always do. I can only hope that all of this talk about inclusion doesn’t die after the last statue is passed out.